India drew first blood in the Test Series this week despite a moderate contribution from Virat Kohli. However Virat added another impressive stat to his CV recently in the ODI series against the West Indies where, having made 157 not out, he made an eighteenth successive score of 20 or more in ODIs, (passing Matthew Hayden’s run of 17 20+ scores in 2007.) He then extended his run to nineteen with 107 in the next match before finally falling for 16 in Mumbai. Twelve of Virat’s knocks were also over 50, (8×100, 4×50.)

Has a run of scores of 20 or more of this length ever been achieved by a Stoker? After a trawl of the stats, the short answer is no, but there have been some impressive sequences; the longest being eleven, achieved by Chris Goode and Steve Eggleston. A couple of players will go into the 2019 season with a chance to beat that run. (See later on.)

For the avoidance of doubt, in these scoring runs below, if a player made a score of less than 20 but was not out, or did not bat in a match, we have continued the run but not counted the score of less than 20 or the DNB in the sequence.

Have you made the list? Look for yourself here…

As mentioned above, messers Goode and Eggleston have the longest run…

11 Chris Goode
45 in the last game of 1956 then 50 34 31 65 63 71 63 103* 30 and 77 in his first ten innings in 1957

11 Steve Eggleston
45 36 25 60 22 26* 27 24 and 132 in 1993 – these were all the games he played that season!
He then started 1994 with 44 and 42.

…closely followed by these four sturdy Stoke oaks who have runs of ten innings…

10 Steve Garner
21 34 32 75 32* 46 30 105* 31 89 in 1986

10 Will Gudgeon
22 54* 45 61 34* 19* 30 26 28 26 in 2013 then 50* in his first game of 2014

10 Gavin Johns
40 78 77 58*and 71 at the end of 1996 then 30 155* 43 28 and 67 at the start of 1997

10 Nick Lo
63* 23 22 27 31 38 39 30 61 29 in 2013

A few of Stoke’s all-time leading run-scorers/highest average-holders are in the next group with a run of nine innings, or eight, (Alistair McMillan and Ian Wellman have one of each, Sid Lahiri can boast two runs of eight in successive seasons in the noughties)…

After Yasir Shah’s 14 wicket haul last week an article appeared on the web, (see foot of this post), suggesting that he is probably going to be the fastest ever to take 200 Test wickets. His current count is 195 at an average of 28.23 and a strike rate of 54.45. All this from just 62 innings bowled in his 32 Test career that is just over 4 years old. Decent.

We took a look at our Club stats to see how we compared and the answer is…very favourably!

Roy Johns needed 74 games to reach 200 wickets, (he didn’t bowl in four of them), and his strike rate, (24.93), was more than double that of Yasir’s. Roy’s average for his first 200 wickets was also an incredible 9.36!

Although Yasir has played in fewer games and bowled in fewer innings he has the advantage of unlimited overs and the chance to bowl out the tail twice in a match.

Three other Stokers have needed less than 100 games to reach 200 wickets; Phil Johnson, Jack Massey and Ken Hutchinson. Note they are all from previous generations when the standard of pitches and opposition that we played on and against wasn’t always as high as they are today; although let’s not take anything away from them.

When looking at strike rates, Ollie Hood and Phil Easton are the only two bowlers who needed less than four overs to take a wicket; Ollie’s career strike rate and average for his first 200 wickets staying pretty consistent for his next 467.

Here is the complete list of Stokers with more than 200 wickets; sorted by how few games played to get there, the strike rates and time taken to get to the landmark : 200th Wicket Analysis
The Strike Rates are approximate as we can’t tell the exact over or ball that the 200th wicket was taken

Let’s also look at the current Stokers not on the list who are approaching 200 career wickets:

One who could buck the trend and join the list of players from yesteryear is Nico Spreeth who has a strike rate of 22.13 for his 174 wickets, (average 16.22), but he has already needed 122 games to get there, (having bowled in 105 innings), so won’t top the list of fewest games.

Further down the list Shawn Dyson has 78 wickets from 39 games and currently only needs to bowl just over 4.1 overs to take each of his wickets, so he could threaten the above if he continues or improves in future seasons.

Another to watch is Jack Townsend. If he makes his expected return to playing action next season he could improve on his 79 wickets from 67 appearances and a strike rate of 28.05.

Test Match v ODI
Yasir’s figures relate to the Test arena. What about ODIs? In the shorter format no player has got to 200 wickets in less than 100 games. Saqlain Mushtaq managed it in 104 and is the only player to do so in less than five years, needing 3 years 249 days to get there. Keep an eye on Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan, though, who has 118 ODI wickets in just 52 appearances.

Only five Stokers have reached 200 wickets in less than five years; Hutchinson and Easton, (the latter crammed 138 appearances into three years and 49 days!), got there quicker than Saqlain; Johns, Alan Rutland and Mike Cooper complete that quintet. Coops might have got there even quicker had he bowled more than nine wicketless overs in the whole of his third season of bowling in 1983.

As Stoke play pretty much all one-day/innings matches, it is arguable that the ODI list could form a better comparison, but it some ways it would be hypocritical as we play many timed/unlimited overs matches too and the players on the above CricInfo list are capped at ten overs, (or 11/12 for those who played in the old days of 55 and 60 over ODIs.)

We’ll let you decide how you interpret the above, but in conclusion we think that in many cases are bowlers are better than Yasir Shah!

With Ben Foakes walking off with the Man of the Series award earlier this week we thought it appropriate to devote some web space to wicket-keeping as, generally, the Stats and Features sections of this site lean towards batting and bowling performances.

Who could or should we ask? When looking at commentary in the “My Greatest XI” section, two bits of feedback from he of pony tail and he of Radio DJ helped us identify a suitable candidate to pick on…

Po : “…I’ve never seen anyone making keeping wicket look as easy. I don’t know enough about keeping to get technical, but I never worry about edges or stumping chances not being taken when he’s behind the stumps. Also a fluent batsman with the ability to rotate the strike or hit boundaries and, (like a lot of good keepers), never short of a word or two for the opposition batters when necessary”

and

Radio X : “…Easy choice as wicket-keeper. He has taken countless edges off my bowling over the years and helped my average out. Plus I’ve never seen anyone play so little yet always look in decent touch with the bat. Thankfully we never bat together as he runs far too many singles.”

Having gone past 200 dismissals for the Club in the season just gone, we set Tom Frost a little challenge which he gladly took on.

Firstly, could he recall the twelve players who he has combined with for the most catches and/or stumpings?

Surprisingly Shawn Dyson is, (currently), an incorrect answer. There has only been one c T.Frost b Dyson

TF : Surely Dyson got more than 1 snick off…

SDCC : Shawn has picked up six wickets courtesy of catches by keepers, (over 55% of all Shawn’s dismissals have been bowled or leg-before), but five of them were held by James Whitmarsh. Frosty has just the one behind the timbers, plus one as an outfielder.

TF : Will Gudgeon? Andy Page?

SDCC : W.Gudgeon is a correct answer, (7 – all caught), but nothing off Pagie.

Stuart Riley wasn’t a great guess as he only took thirteen wickets for the Club, six of them for the 2s.

TF : (Looks like he is starting to think about the Trust League) T.Gudgeon? Alim Sheikh? Trying to think of who used to bowl when we were in Fuller’s…also I used to play Sunday so maybe Roy Johns or Finchy?

Only one c T.Frost b Sheikh and two just dismissals each off Johns and Riley. Incredibly, despite the difference in the number of overs bowled and wickets taken for the Club, the Finch brothers have one dismissal each courtesy of Frosty.

A great effort so far, and having kept a promise not to cheat, he did start to ask for some clues! (Without scrolling down, how are other readers of this getting on?)

SDCC : Sam Levido, he of mullet and late swing, teamed up with Frosty six times in the single season that he played for us. Saud Hassan played a few more years but just the one c T.Frost b Hassan in the scorebooks.

There have been 44 different caught and/or stumped T.Frost b Bowler combinations amongst his 201 dismissals, against 64 different clubs. Nearly a third of all dismissals, 63, have come against just eight of those clubs, though.

Being told the last paragraph seemed to light the curiosity touch paper, so looking for another challenge Frosty asked for another list with gaps to fill. We sent him this…

TF : I remember taking 3 catches against Godalming when I wasn’t keeping so I’d guess that they would be up there. I feel like we’ve played Old Ruts lots of times including Trust League. I haven’t played in many Churt games.

SDCC : 9 dismissals v Godalming, (Agge & Clarke twice, Old Man Gilly and four others once.) 7 v Ruts, (Foster twice.) Just the four dismissals against Churt in the two games this year.

TF : Merrow? Oxshott? Kingstonian? Old Hamptonians? I’m thinking of clubs that we have met in several seasons.

When Virat Kohli became the thirteenth player to reach 10000 ODI runs yesterday, (see link below), this image appeared on the web soon after to say that he had the highest average at the point of reaching that landmark.

You may need to click on this image to enlarge it depending on what device you are viewing this on.

Four Stokers have made 10000 or more runs for the Club; Alistair McMillan, Ian Wellman, Phil Easton and David Edwards.

Phil needed 272 innings to get to five figures, but got them at a very impressive average of 48.78; better than Jacques Kallis, Ricky Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar who all had lower averages when they reached 10000 runs.

For the record the averages at the point of reaching 10000 runs, the number of innings taken and the current & final Club aggregates and averages for the four Stokers are:

In terms of time Phil took just 8 years and 95 days to get there; much quicker than Kohli who made his ODI debut 10 years and 68 days ago; although Kohli only needed 205 innings to get to his landmark; a record that looks set to stand for quite a while as the only others near, (the now allegedly ‘retired from List A cricket’ Chris Gayle and the ever reluctant AB De Villiers), have already had more knocks than Kohli. Only Hashim Amla, (169 innings for 7696 runs), has had fewer innings than Kohli if you set a minimum of 7300 ODI runs.

Back to Stoke only Jack Raimondo and Will Gudgeon have better averages than messers Edwards and McMillan, (using the same minimum 7300 runs criteria), which puts a lot of the achievements above into perspective.

Last week’s Ask Steven column on CricInfo looked at people who opened the batting and the bowling in the same ODI. The question and the answer was:

Q : Mehidy Hasan opened the batting and bowling for Bangladesh in the Asia Cup final. How many times has this happened?

A : This particular double is not terribly unusual in ODIs – it’s happened no fewer than 171 times by 45 different players; but Mehidy Hasan was the first to do it for Bangladesh, in the Asia Cup final in Dubai.

The man who did it most frequently was the combative Indian all-rounder Manoj Prabhakar with 45 – almost twice as often as the next on the list, Neil Johnson of Zimbabwe, who managed it 25 times. Mohammad Hafeez has so far done it 13 times for Pakistan, while Tillakaratne Dilshan of Sri Lanka did it 13 times, and Darron Reekers of the Netherlands 12. We should perhaps give a special mention to Frasat Ali, who opened the batting and bowling in every one of East Africa’s official ODIs – all three of them, during the inaugural World Cup in 1975.

So who has done this for Stoke?

In 1st XI League cricket there have been eleven different players to have opened the batting and the bowling in the same match, just seven in 2s league cricket, and four in the Surrey Trust League. In the Under 19 T20 Blast we haven’t played that many games, so only Giacomo Gray and Nico Spreeth have had the honour of being first up in both disciplines.

As with Steven Lynch’s analysis of ODIs, an Indian tops the Stoke list with Sid Lahiri having opened the batting and the bowling in the same game on 23 occasions. Next comes Tim Handel with ten fewer. You could make a pretty handy Stoke XI with the players on the 1s list, although finding/asking someone to keep wicket might be tricky, and pity the poor captain tasked with sorting out a batting and bowling order to keep everyone happy!

When looking at individual performances; Sid is the only player to complete a match double of 50+ runs and 5+ wickets and is one of only two 1st XI centurions. With the ball only Mike Cooper, Sid, (twice), and Ranga Yasalal have taken a 5-for.

In 2nd XI cricket instances are far more rare; in part due to the opening spots having traditionally been filled by people who kept wicket or by players who wouldn’t expect to open the bowling, unless it is to buy wickets or start with the old ball.

Apologies here to Keith Watson who isn’t on the list at all but could fall into some of the above categories having taken an 8-for within his 70 career Club wickets –

Another “My Greatest XI “ has dropped into the Club in-box, this one courtesy of Toby Tarrant who writes…

Here you go guys, I’m sat by the pool in Verona compiling this. The things I do for this Club…

Ian Hopton
“Hoppy” has to be one of the first names on the teamsheet. Mr.Reliable in many ways, I can’t think of a game where he hasn’t contributed with either the ball, the bat or in the field. I’ll put him at the top of the order because the rest of this line-up likes to have a slog and we need someone to at least try and stick around. Plus we need him to lead the warm up and roll the wicket.

James Trower
More likely to be found in a kebab house than on the honours board but JT’s record is undeniable. Skippering Stoke to two promotions in two years. Hasn’t scored the volume of runs he would have liked in that time, often looking good for 20 or 30…but that’s 20 or 30 more than all the other openers I’ve played with. I’m not going to make him captain because it would be nice for this side to win the toss once in a while.

Will Gudgeon
One of the easiest selections on this list. On his day the most destructive batsman in any league who will win you two or three games a season single-handedly. He is also a very safe pair of hands in the slips and always keen to go in at short leg. I prefer him batting around 5-6 but I’ll put him at 3 because I really can’t be bothered to listen to his whining. Also, he brings Shireen along and she plays a crucial role in making sure Jo Patrick isn’t the only one who’s had far too much gin.

James Whitmarsh
Thankfully a much better batsman than he is a fashionista. “Whitty” is one of the first names I look for when the team gets sent round every week and I always think we are in with a chance in a run chase if he’s still at the crease. He sometimes goes for Oranjeboom over Asahi which is unforgivable but he scores enough runs to get in the side nonetheless.

Shawn Dyson
I have only played one full season with “Bomber” but he was top run-scorer and top wicket taker…you can’t really ask for much more than that from your Overseas. Loves the club nearly as much as he loves Ed Sheeran.

Tom Frost
Easy choice as wicket-keeper, he has taken countless edges off my bowling over the years and helped my average out. Plus I’ve never seen anyone play so little yet always look in decent touch with the bat. Thankfully we never bat together as he runs far too many singles. He also brings Amy along occasionally and this Club needs all the eye candy it can get.

Jase Earl
Jase is the sort of character you want in your team. He is calm under pressure, he can bowl, bat and field and he hates losing more than anyone else at the Club, (you’d think he’d be used to it by now.) Of course he would probably refuse to play for this team so he can go and be Roy of the Rovers in the 2s instead.

Andy Page (Captain)
Has to skipper this side. It’s a team full of huge characters and without him keeping them in check I think it would be kicked out of all the leagues in the UK. I owe Pagie a lot after he gave me my debut in the 1st XI a long time ago. A very selfless player who only bats and bowls where the team needs him to. Plus he always gets a jug in.

James Miller
Simply, the best bowler I have ever played with and we wouldn’t have got promoted without him. No matter what total we were defending we always knew we had a chance because we had Miller. I was fortunate enough to share the new ball with him and I would steal wickets at the other end because he had terrified the batsman the over before. Didn’t stop me constantly pointing out that my average was better than his.

Will Frost
It doesn’t matter what standard the batsman is, they always find Willo horrible to face and I’ve seen him keep some of the best batsman in Surrey under wraps for very long periods of time. He’s also crucial for all the nonsense he talks in the field and for the beers in the clubhouse after the game. Sadly, I still can’t get him up the order higher than 10. More Jimmy Anderson than Brian Lara.

Adrian Mills
My original opening partner. When the conditions really suit him “Po” is absolutely unplayable. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen a batsman think they can dominate him and then end up looking very silly. Plus even when the conditions are prime for batting you know he’s going to bowl his overs for not many. Also this dressing room needs someone with a decent taste in music.

That’s my XI. Plenty of players I was tempted to put in, purely for the night out after, (Raimondo, Handel, Bond, etc), but these are the players who I have seen perform for us the most over the years.

Here’s to many more!

If you want to offer some comment on Toby’s selection, e-mail stokecc@hotmail.com and we’ll pass them on.

Use the same e-mail address to send in your greatest Stoke XI or World XI.

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